It is well known in the vehicle industry that certain rotary accessory devices are often used in connection with vehicle motors. Two such accessory devices are alternators and starter motors. Alternators are used in connection with an engine and are typically belt driven by the engine. Alternators have internal components, which when rotated supply electrical power to a vehicle and/or an engine. Alternators are typically removable but rigidly mounted via a bracket to the engine block or the chassis of the vehicle. In many cases, where a standard type of alternating mounting arrangement is used, the alternator has “ears” with holes that are mounted onto a post or bolt attached to the vehicle. This permits pivoting of the alternator so that the alternator can be pivoted around the post against the belt tension in order to install and remove belts, and provide a suitable tension when the belt is installed.
Starter motors are electrical motors, which are typically removable but rigidly mounted to an engine or transmission casing. The starter motor has an electrically driven pinion gear extending from the starter motor that engages a component (typically gears on the flywheel of the engine) in order to be able to rotate the crankshaft of the engine to start it. There is a wide range of attachment mechanisms for attaching the described starter motor.
It is often desirable to test alternators and/or starter motors at locations where they have been removed from the vehicle, e.g., on a test bench. However, the current alternator and starter testers include many test leads that have to be coupled to the test alternators and/or starter motors. The current alternator and starter testers do not have an effective way to verify whether the test leads including any adapters are functioning properly. Also, current alternator and starter testers do not have an effective way to verify whether the proper test leads are coupled to the proper connections of the test alternators and/or starter motors. Defective test leads will lead to alternators and/or starter motors being found faulty or defective during testing. Also, improper coupling of the test leads may cause false faulty or defective condition during testing. Thus, it would be desirable to have the alternator or starter tester to include an alternator cable check to prevent false defects.
Conventional alternator and starter tester may test alternators and/or starter motors by activating an output and then connect a test load to draw current from the tested alternators and/or starter motors to verify that an output voltage potential may be maintained. However, conventional alternator and starter tester uses a low current test load due to limitations of motor power to spin the alternators and/or starter motors and heat generated by the test load. The low current test load may not be able to detect faults within the test alternators and/or starter motors because of a small variation of output voltage potential. Thus, it would be desirable to have an alternator or starter tester to increase test load in order to accurately detect faults within the test alternator or starter motor tester.